The Frug

For those times when you wonder what you’re getting out of practice and training:

“For 42 years, I’ve been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education, and training. On January 15, the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal.”

– Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, pilot US Airways Flight 1549.

About the Bank

One of the first personal improvement books I read was The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People By Stephen Covey. The book had a big impact on how I worked. Covey spends time in the book diving into work and personal relationships. One of the concepts Covey espoused is the importance of making deposits in the emotional bank accounts of others. Basically, every time you build up trust or goodwill with another person, you’re making a deposit in their emotional bank account as well as yours.

Being a saver, the bank account analogy made a lot of sense to me. You build up deposits of trust and respect over time and occasionally you can make a withdrawal, possibly a favor or tapping into another’s expertise.

In the middle of a crowded Irish pub, my friend stood up and shouted “Brad will be taking Uber home tonight!” and ordered another round to cheers and jeers. Late that evening, a shiny Jeep showed up and drove my wife and me home in the freshly falling snow. The total cost of the ride $6.28. My friend didn’t know that I use UberX about once a week and whenever I’m traveling

Having a shiny sedan show up at your home with a driver may not seem very frugal until you consider parking costs $6-$10 for a night out in the city and the occasional $50-$100 parking ticket. I got $200 worth the year before I started using UBER. The hundred dollar parking ticket was due to an expired Virginia inspection decal. I was a bit peeved until I saw that this parking ticket actually said “ticket and tow” and I’d gotten to my car before the tow truck had arrived. My Virginia inspection decal was two days expired and I was parked in Washington DC! That city will do anything for a buck as long as it’s a pain in the ass.

A few years ago when Virginia tried to ban Uber, I wrote to my Congressman and told him that he was putting drinkers back on the road if he supported banning services like Uber and Lyft. I didn’t use the word drunks because many folks who get a DUI think they’re fine until it’s too late. The average cost of a DUI can range anywhere from $7000 to $25,000 depending on the area and fines. The younger the driver, the more invincible they believe they are and more likely to have others in the car with them, not to mention the other drivers and pedestrians they endanger when driving impaired. If you’re going to be out celebrating, use it tell your family and friends to use it. I’ll give you some Uber hacks below to eliminate any excuses.[Read more…] about 8 ways to hack UBER, ditch your car, and save money in the on-demand economy.

Using your name to create a personal domain and homepage.

In the wide world of apps, social media, and online profiles people may ask what’s the purpose of a personal domain name? Over the years, I’ve created profiles on just about every popular social media site including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, Medium, 500px, Pinterest, Nextdoor, Quora, WordPress, Yelp, Adobe, About.me, Flavors.me, Clarity.fm….. the list goes on.

In addition to this, I write and work with partners, media companies or events that post my profile here and there. If you’re active online, do a Google search for your name and you’ll see many of these profiles appear. Many are out of date, put up quickly, or lack complete information.

Bang Your Drum

Run Your Race

Pause And Think About It

Three of my favorite outdoor sculptures, all created by Barry Flanagan. I came across these sculptures in three different cities: Amsterdam, Dublin, and Washington, DC. The photos were taken over 10 years apart but somehow they work together to convey a message. Bang your drum, run your race, but don’t forget to pause and think about it. Especially if in all your running around you look like a jackrabbit or the bunny man from Donnie Darko.

Carl is behind the financial independence blog 1500 Days to Freedom. He’s recently been made famous in multiple New York Times articles, Yahoo Finance, and on Good Morning America. I first met Carl at FinCon 2018 (a personal finance conference) where I scored an email invite to his “bring your own” local craft beer party. Since this was my first time at FinCon I wanted to make sure that I fully participated. The idea of the party was to bring a local craft beer from wherever you were flying in from.

I’ve been playing with the screen time tracker on my iPhone. Apple recently introduced screen time tracking in response to legitimate public concern about rampant addiction to looking at our iPhones.

Apple hid this app in the settings section so if you look for it on your home screen or search bar you won’t see it. You need to go to settings and search for it. I really don’t feel there’s enough data in there for me to decide if I have a smartphone problem but I should keep an eye on it. Actually, I already know I have a smartphone problem. I really don’t need another app to tell me about this. I just want to manage it.